Get to a Top University

We only accept ambitious students into the Twynham Sixth Form. This of course means that many of our Sixth Formers are keen to secure a place at a top university, such as Oxford, Cambridge, one of the London universities or the highly specialist arts colleges.

Our Executive Headteacher, Dr. Terry Fish, has developed seminars and specialist material on how to secure that coveted place. At Twynham there is significant support from specialists to give you every chance of success. If you are ambitious, you will find the 'Get to a Top Uni' brochure invaluable. It is full of interesting information and no-nonsense advice.

To help those students considering applying to Oxford or Cambridge, medicine and the top universities or specialist colleges for art, music, dance and drama we have put together some detailed, very specific advice booklets, which follow:

Oxford and Cambridge
These universities have their own rules and expectations. It is therefore vitally important that you plan well ahead and understand the ‘rules’, which are detailed here. You can also watch a short video of the visit of some of our students to former Twynham student Amy, at St Hugh’s College, Oxford here.

Medicine
As with applying to Oxford and Cambridge, medicine has its own rules and expectations. Students need to understand these well in advance if they are going to be well placed to make a credible application. Whilst the title of this leaflet is ‘Medicine’, the advice also applies to dentistry and veterinary medicine.

Art, Dance, Drama and Music
The arts have their own special rules and there is a huge variation between the different universities and specialist colleges. The leaflets which follow have been written to enable students to have a clear understanding of the pathway that they might wish to follow and give information about how they may ensure that they are able to be taken as a serious applicant. The leaflets can be found as follows: Art, Dance, Drama, Music.

Student Fees

With student fees of up to £9000 per year from 2012, students and parents may well be carefully considering whether university is actually worth it. Myths, panic and confusion about the 2012 English student finance changes are widespread. All the coverage, during the summer, focused on Commons' spats and riots in the street – with little information about the practical impact on students' pockets.

What is worrying is that the increase in university fees from 2012 and the level of misunderstanding around the new university loan structure could result in young people missing out on a university education which is so important if they are going to be able to compete in a globalised economy.

A key aspect is how you approach the student loan – and if you think of it as a ‘graduate’ tax rather than a ‘loan’ then the whole nature of the debt changes. This is explained extremely well in Martin Lewis’ website as above.

I hope that this information if useful and helps to dispel many of the myths surrounding the new student fees and how the ‘loan’ operates. Going to university is such a valuable thing to do and if our students are going to be able to compete in our globalised world, then a degree is vital in addition to the fun and the experience of mixing with new people as part of their journey.